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You're not alone, but... riddle me this: what's the difference between emoji and ideographs (e.g., Chinese Han / Japanese Kanji characters)?? I submit that the

You're not alone, but... riddle me this: what's the difference between emoji and ideographs (e.g., Chinese Han / Japanese Kanji characters)?? I submit that the only difference is... time. Perhaps a better questions would be: Do you believe that we should close the set of human language scripts? If so, when? That's a serious question. You might say that we should not invent new scripts (there goes Klingon), only accept new Unicode codepoint assignments for existing scripts. OK, but, really, you want no evolution of scripts? I don't think the Chinese -for example- would appreciate that, as Han/Kanji have been added over time, and even recently[0][1]. So perhaps you might say "just don't invent new scripts". Ok, but, why not? Why should we close one enormous aspect of human culture to innovation?! And what if some language authority (e.g., the Spanish Royal Academy) were to decide to incorporate emoji? International politics has had a definite and substantial effect on Unicode's design and evolution -- do you think that the Unicode Consortium can somehow start to resist political pressure where it has not been able to?! You can see where I'm going with this. Emoji are new ideographs. Love them or hate them, that's what they are. Me? I like phonetic systems, but I understand that ideographs add expression dimensions that most of us outside countries where ideographs prevail... just are not even aware of. There are word games to be played in, e.g., Japanese, which will just not translate well to English -- though to be fair the reverse is also true, just in a completely different way. I don't think opposition to emoji is politically tenable, not in the long term, and probably not in the short term either. [0] https://www.quora.com/Are-new-Chinese-characters-still-being-invented https://www.quora.com/Are-new-Chinese-characters-still-being... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_j%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_j%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji

pvg 8y ago
The difference is that Chinese characters are not ideographs. Which is a pretty big difference.
- cryptonector 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ideograph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ideograph The only substantial difference I can think of to support not having Unicode codepoint assignments for emoji is this: there is no calligraphy for emoji -- the vast majority of non-artist emoji users cannot write more than a handful of emoji with pen and paper. But soon we might find that most people cannot write with pen an paper in any script anyways. Cursive has already gone into the dustbin of history, whether we like it or not.
  - pvg 8y ago
    I don't know why you picked the redirect rather than the actual title of the page. And the very first line is: "Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters that are used in the Japanese writing system" These were already not-ideographs even when they originally made their way to Japan.
    - cryptonector 8y ago
      > Shiji (Mandarin: zhǐshì) characters are ideographs, often called "simple ideographs" or "simple indicatives" to distinguish them and tell the difference from compound ideographs (below). They are usually simple graphically and represent an abstract concept such as 上 "up" or "above" and 下 "down" or "below". These make up a tiny fraction of modern characters. EDIT: It seems to me that you're arguing that Han are not ideographs, but here's a definition of the word from wikipedia: > An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek ἰδέα idéa "idea" and γράφω gráphō "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms. Now, Han are independent of language, being used to write multiple rather different languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Japanese), and they do represent ideas or concepts. They do also get used for only the sounds of the spoken words (in each language) for the same ideas/concepts, in which case they may mean very different words altogether. And they get used in combinations that aren't ideographic themselves, but none of that makes Han not-ideographic in origin and character.
      - pvg 8y ago
        I'm not sure pasting longer bits of wikipedia that say the opposite of what you said are going to convince me. The whole notion that 'X is just Y but with more time' is itself pretty silly. The Lascaux cave paintings are still pictures and not literature after 17,000 years. The writing system we use to type at each other is ideographic in origin. It just changed to something that very much isn't, just like all common modern writing systems.
vortico 8y ago
The difference is that Han and Kanji are 4000+ years old. When smiley faces reach han/kanji's level of consistency if humans 20 generations from now speak in full smiley face syntax, then it's time for Unicode to standardize them. Anyone from standards committees know that when you attempt to standardize something early that is in development and still mutating, you either 1) prevent further change of the development if your standard is widespread enough, leaving you with an early, not-well-thought-out version that the world has to live with or 2) your standard must keep up with the changing reality, making your standard change over time, which is synonymous with "a bad standard" or "not even a standard". Unicode has a perfect solution already for glyphs that are currently in development: unspecified reserved blocks. If a tribe of humans wants to develop a language around smiley faces, they can use one of these blocks until Unicode Inc. recognizes that it is consistent enough to standardize. But instead, Unicode has placed emoji in the mainline standard. There's only one explanation for Unicode's horrible decision. Ideagraphs are controversial, and controversy creates votes and attention, which funds their company. If you think this is the way it should work, emojis are for you.
- cryptonector 8y ago
  As writing systems they are old indeed. Not every character in those systems is that old, or very old at all. So what? In a digital world, not having a Unicode codepoint assignment means not having the character at all, not even with pen and paper. Therefore rejecting emoji is the same as rejecting new scripts altogether. I don't think that's wise. EDIT: Also, regarding private use codepoints, since the desire is to interoperate, those cannot be used for emoji.
  - vortico 8y ago
    Private reserved blocks are perfect for emoji and developling languages. They can be a time-variable recommendation, not a standard, by Unicode. That's how anything gets standardized. You don't just put new arbitrary ideas into the mainline standard. This is like Boost and the C++ standard, or PEP drafts and the Python standard, or W3 WD and REC, or industry de-facto standards and ISO. If emoji becomes constant enough (not likely since no language will even be developed using it), it should then be moved into Unicode Standard. But accepting emoji to the official standard on the spot? I see they've chosen my (1) from above.

pvg 8y ago

The difference is that Chinese characters are not ideographs. Which is a pretty big difference.

cryptonector 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ideograph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ideograph The only substantial difference I can think of to support not having Unicode codepoint assignments for emoji is this: there is no calligraphy for emoji -- the vast majority of non-artist emoji users cannot write more than a handful of emoji with pen and paper. But soon we might find that most people cannot write with pen an paper in any script anyways. Cursive has already gone into the dustbin of history, whether we like it or not.
- pvg 8y ago
  I don't know why you picked the redirect rather than the actual title of the page. And the very first line is: "Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters that are used in the Japanese writing system" These were already not-ideographs even when they originally made their way to Japan.
  - cryptonector 8y ago
    > Shiji (Mandarin: zhǐshì) characters are ideographs, often called "simple ideographs" or "simple indicatives" to distinguish them and tell the difference from compound ideographs (below). They are usually simple graphically and represent an abstract concept such as 上 "up" or "above" and 下 "down" or "below". These make up a tiny fraction of modern characters. EDIT: It seems to me that you're arguing that Han are not ideographs, but here's a definition of the word from wikipedia: > An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek ἰδέα idéa "idea" and γράφω gráphō "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms. Now, Han are independent of language, being used to write multiple rather different languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Japanese), and they do represent ideas or concepts. They do also get used for only the sounds of the spoken words (in each language) for the same ideas/concepts, in which case they may mean very different words altogether. And they get used in combinations that aren't ideographic themselves, but none of that makes Han not-ideographic in origin and character.
    - pvg 8y ago
      I'm not sure pasting longer bits of wikipedia that say the opposite of what you said are going to convince me. The whole notion that 'X is just Y but with more time' is itself pretty silly. The Lascaux cave paintings are still pictures and not literature after 17,000 years. The writing system we use to type at each other is ideographic in origin. It just changed to something that very much isn't, just like all common modern writing systems.

vortico 8y ago

The difference is that Han and Kanji are 4000+ years old. When smiley faces reach han/kanji's level of consistency if humans 20 generations from now speak in full smiley face syntax, then it's time for Unicode to standardize them. Anyone from standards committees know that when you attempt to standardize something early that is in development and still mutating, you either 1) prevent further change of the development if your standard is widespread enough, leaving you with an early, not-well-thought-out version that the world has to live with or 2) your standard must keep up with the changing reality, making your standard change over time, which is synonymous with "a bad standard" or "not even a standard". Unicode has a perfect solution already for glyphs that are currently in development: unspecified reserved blocks. If a tribe of humans wants to develop a language around smiley faces, they can use one of these blocks until Unicode Inc. recognizes that it is consistent enough to standardize. But instead, Unicode has placed emoji in the mainline standard. There's only one explanation for Unicode's horrible decision. Ideagraphs are controversial, and controversy creates votes and attention, which funds their company. If you think this is the way it should work, emojis are for you.

cryptonector 8y ago
As writing systems they are old indeed. Not every character in those systems is that old, or very old at all. So what? In a digital world, not having a Unicode codepoint assignment means not having the character at all, not even with pen and paper. Therefore rejecting emoji is the same as rejecting new scripts altogether. I don't think that's wise. EDIT: Also, regarding private use codepoints, since the desire is to interoperate, those cannot be used for emoji.
- vortico 8y ago
  Private reserved blocks are perfect for emoji and developling languages. They can be a time-variable recommendation, not a standard, by Unicode. That's how anything gets standardized. You don't just put new arbitrary ideas into the mainline standard. This is like Boost and the C++ standard, or PEP drafts and the Python standard, or W3 WD and REC, or industry de-facto standards and ISO. If emoji becomes constant enough (not likely since no language will even be developed using it), it should then be moved into Unicode Standard. But accepting emoji to the official standard on the spot? I see they've chosen my (1) from above.